Dancing with Conspiracy

Conspiracies are weird. They can also be a bit fun. Christianity believes in the ultimate conspiracy theory of the enemies of God being manipulated and made complicit in evil by unseen forces the comprise spiritual warfare. To really get a good 90s dose of the nuttier version of this, the Christian music artist Carman has a fascinating take aimed at kids (for unrelated entertainment). My preference of presentation is closer to The Veritas Conflict or Frank Paretti options. I did listen to Carman’s a great many times.

People mock conspiracy. I get it, I guess. I’ve never been much on accepting at face value what is presented to the public. I also don’t accept at face value what is dished out by strange people on the internet. However, I suspect the gut reaction to conspiracy theories that they are all nuts is embedded in an unwillingness to believe governing forces are capable of it or that the genius can’t exist. It’s too far outside lived experience for us to fully be on board with that central theory, no matter how popular Frank Underwood is in American household tv culture.

Some people are just more capable of imagining it, though. And such imaginings make for great fiction that tantalizes and tempts us to question this seemingly immovable assumption.

I’m not one to think that there can’t exist the pieces central to a conspiracy theory – secrecy, organization, planning, genius – though I do not go as far as conspiracy theorists do. The news media and investigations (do those exist anymore? News investigators?) seem to keep things surface level and disconnected. Sometimes it can be shocking to discover something seemingly unrelated may actually have a connection to a major event, if not purposely, but still potentially causal (as one of a great many factors) – such as Britain’s and Germany’s trade policies in the 1850s leading up to WWI and WWII.

The entirety of a conspiracy theory need not be accepted in order to let one question the public story. It should not be shocking or incredulous to us that governments can use propaganda against their own people to accomplish furtherance of their own goals. You do not need to agree with Alex Jones that Sandy Hook was staged and no one died to wonder if what is surface level accepted is true – could the unstable shooter be manipulated? Sure he could. Was he? I don’t know.

In Parkland, we don’t have to go very far to doubt. A teacher’s publicized testimony of an armored shooter and video of catching a boy in jeans and t-shirt with no weapon or armor can still let us question the media’s presentation without being full on conspiracy nutcases.

How far is too far, though? Scripture says to test everything for truth. Refusing to blindly accept the presented story should not necessarily make one a conspiracy theorist or nutjob.

MJBubba:
Who conspired to make all universities bastions of Leftism and hostile to conservatives?

There was a “long march” through the institutions to change the “old thinking”. There was a coordinated effort to change things. I hear one of the last places to study English is an English Department. Who would ever thought that an university would be a fancy name for “a birth control dispenser”?

And most Departments in every university had a conspiracy over many decades to bring about the current state of affairs. Only a small handful of gatekeepers needed to conspire. Their success only required that other faculty members keep silent.

I’m not very fond of R. A. Lafferty’s works, but he wrote a rather funny short story about conspiracies, including a conspiracy which is supposed to have many agents, all of them completely dormant thus unable to do anything — the Common Decency People (Lafferty does not qualify them as such, but this is the idea –. The title is “About a Secret Crocodile”. Here a sample : “There is a secret society of seven men that controls the finances of the world. This is known to everyone but the details are not known. There are some who believe that it would be better if one of those seven men were a financier.” 😉

I was reminded of the story by my wife while I was boasting that Mr Walker had set a “like” to 3 of my comments I was summing up for her. 😉

Blumroch:
I’m not very fond of R. A. Lafferty’s works, but he wrote a rather funny short story about conspiracies, including a conspiracy which is supposed to have many agents, all of them completely dormant thus unable to do anything — the Common Decency People (Lafferty does not qualify them as such, but this is the idea –. The title is “About a Secret Crocodile”. Here a sample : “There is a secret society of seven men that controls the finances of the world. This is known to everyone but the details are not known. There are some who believe that it would be better if one of those seven men were a financier.” 😉

I was reminded of the story by my wife while I was boasting that Mr Walker had set a “like” to 3 of my comments I was summing up for her. 😉

(At LifeSiteNews you will have to scroll down past their emergency plea for funds to see the article. They are in a funding emergency because they had been primarily doing fundraising through their Facebook page, and Facebook has been shutting them down via some sort of brownout. Many people only recently heard of LifeSiteNews; they are a small Canadian Catholic anti-abortion site. They got the scoop on Pope Francis’s knowledge of Cardinal McCarrick’s homosexual peccadillos because Archbishop Viganò trusted them and sent his letter to them.)

[For full disclosure, I am not Catholic and my Catholic friends are not connected. All I know is what I read on the internet. But, I have learned how to find trustworthy sources on the internet.]

MJBubba:
Ms. TempTime, I had not seen the conspiracy theory about Soros, Biden, Podesta, et. al., influencing the College of Cardinals. I think that is sort of far-fetched.

It may be. I have no idea.

I thought your question was interesting, given that on the same day I saw your question, someone on another board had linked to an article that offered a possible answer(conspiracy?) to your question your question. 🙂

Regarding the merit of the information in the article, they only part I’ve ever heard/seen any similar was in the Podesta emails that were leaked in which he spoke of the need to infiltrate the Church via Lay organizations.

MJBubba:
Ms. TempTime, I had not seen the conspiracy theory about Soros, Biden, Podesta, et. al., influencing the College of Cardinals. I think that is sort of far-fetched.

It may be. I have no idea.

I thought your question was interesting, given that on the same day I saw your question, someone on another board had linked to an article that offered a possible answer(conspiracy?) to your question your question. 🙂

Regarding the merit of the information in the article, they only part I’ve ever heard/seen any similar was in the Podesta emails that were leaked in which he spoke of the need to infiltrate the Church via Lay organizations.

Yes, but considering the anti-American tilt to the Curia, I bet the only way they could get any traction would be to ask their anti-Christian pal Soros to give cash to the Leftist Cardinals. I’m not thinking that Team Obama would have any other way to influence the Cardinals.

Stina:
(snipped)How far is too far, though? Scripture says to test everything for truth. Refusing to blindly accept the presented story should not necessarily make one a conspiracy theorist or nutjob.

Or maybe I am crazy and I should not be taken seriously. 😉

Where in scripture does it say that? please refresh my memory.

But I totally agree, one MUST seriously think about things before one makes a conclusion.

1 John 4English Standard Version (ESV)Test the Spirits

4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.